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Jeff Schare - BOOK - Shots Fired on Reading Road · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: 55KRC, the talk station. It is 828 at 55KRC, the
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  Speaker 1: talk station. Brian Thomas here wishing everyone a very happy
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  Speaker 1: Friday Eve and welcoming to the 55KRC morning show, Jeff Scherer.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Scherer, I understand, is a sensei homicide detective. At
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  Speaker 1: least back in 2005 he was. He's going to talk
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  Speaker 1: all about that. But he's also a distinguished martial arts instructor. Jeff,
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  Speaker 1: I was checking out your biography on Amazon. Boy, don't
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  Speaker 1: mess with Jeff Scherer. Jeff, welcome to the 55K RC
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  Speaker 1: Morning Show. You're here to talk about your book, Shots
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  Speaker 1: Fired on Redding Road, the Murder of Patrolman Donald Martin,
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  Speaker 1: and the 44-Year Search for His Killer. Obviously a cold case. Jeff,
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  Speaker 1: it's really a pleasure to have you on the program.
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  Speaker 1: Local author he is.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me on the show.
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  Speaker 1: How long were you on the Cincinnati Police Department, Jeff?
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  Speaker 2: About 26 years. Actually, I worked with your sister when
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  Speaker 2: she was a sergeant in homicide when I first got transferred.
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  Speaker 2: She was one of my sergeants.
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  Speaker 1: Read my mind. That was the first question I was
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  Speaker 1: going to ask you. She's been retired for several years now,
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  Speaker 1: but I want to, on behalf of my listening audience, Jeff,
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  Speaker 1: I want to thank you and all members of law
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  Speaker 1: enforcement for your service to the community. Not an easy job,
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  Speaker 1: as I learned a lot over the years with my
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  Speaker 1: sister in law enforcement, and you know it as well.
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  Speaker 1: And I have to imagine one of the most frustrating
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  Speaker 1: or more frustrating parts of the job of being a
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  Speaker 1: police officer is not being able to solve a case
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  Speaker 1: and Let's turn to the subject matter of your case,
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  Speaker 1: shots fired on Redding Road, the murder of a Cincinnati
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  Speaker 1: police patrolman, Donald Martin. How long did it take to
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  Speaker 1: finally figure this one out, Jeff?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the case was unsolved for 44 years when my partner,
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  Speaker 2: Kirk Ballman, and I picked up the case. And we
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  Speaker 2: kind of got the case because of where we sat
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  Speaker 2: in the office. We just kind of got unlucky, I guess,
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  Speaker 2: in that regard. But once we got the case... It
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  Speaker 2: took us about nine months to figure out who the
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  Speaker 2: shooter actually was.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I guess the question I have is it sounds like,
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  Speaker 1: I suppose, in a day before DNA, it probably would
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  Speaker 1: have been helpful back in the day that Officer Martin
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  Speaker 1: was shot multiple times, apparently with his own service revolver.
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  Speaker 1: There were witnesses who saw the gunman. Police found the
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  Speaker 1: weapon and found some clothing they thought was discarded by
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  Speaker 1: the killer and other evidence, but nothing ever became of it.
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  Speaker 1: Do you have any reason why the case went dead
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  Speaker 1: back around the time it happened in 1961?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a couple different things that happened. They
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  Speaker 2: kind of got onto a different suspect, a suspect by
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  Speaker 2: the name of Frank Murph. And that came up because
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  Speaker 2: a couple different reasons. One reason was that the shirt
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  Speaker 2: that was found stuck in a trash can up on
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  Speaker 2: Dandridge Street, Mount Auburn, It was sent off to a lab,
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  Speaker 2: and they found a black hair, what they termed back
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  Speaker 2: then a Negroid hair, now African-American hair, in a pocket.
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  Speaker 2: Along with that, about a month after Don Martin was killed,
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  Speaker 2: Frank Murph was arrested over in District 2 for trying
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  Speaker 2: to take a gun of a cop. Frank Murph was
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  Speaker 2: also killed in Fort Wayne, Indiana for also trying to
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  Speaker 2: take a gun from a cop. So based on those
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  Speaker 2: three things, Frank Murph kind of became the, I guess,
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  Speaker 2: unofficial suspect with the murder of Don Martin. When Kurt
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  Speaker 2: and I opened up the case again, we put out
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  Speaker 2: the word to talk to retired officers, and one of
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  Speaker 2: the cops we talked to was a guy by the
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  Speaker 2: name of Jerry Schimpf. Once we talked to Jerry, he
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  Speaker 2: said he had developed the information of Walter Baker Walls
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  Speaker 2: as a shooter.
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  Speaker 1: Well, yeah. I guess detectives developed the lead on Walker
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  Speaker 1: Baker Walls early on in the investigation, but I understand
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  Speaker 1: that he was never prosecuted for it back around the
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  Speaker 1: original time. How is it that he was identified early
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  Speaker 1: on and he wasn't arrested for the crime back then?
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  Speaker 2: Jerry told us that he was a detective back then.
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  Speaker 2: He was working at the Juvenile Bureau. The Juvenile Bureau
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  Speaker 2: back then dealt with child cases. He was also going
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  Speaker 2: to law school at the same time. And he was
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  Speaker 2: coming out of law school at night one time and
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  Speaker 2: saw the brother of somebody he had a warrant on.
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  Speaker 2: That person ducked into a restaurant downtown. So Jerry followed
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  Speaker 2: him into the restaurant and sat across the booth from him.
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  Speaker 2: Jerry says to the guy, where's your brother? The guy says, well,
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  Speaker 2: why don't you look under the table? Maybe I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to shoot you. So Jerry says, well, why don't you
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  Speaker 2: look under the table? Guy looks under the table and
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  Speaker 2: Jerry has his revolver pointed at him. Jerry says the
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  Speaker 2: guy kind of looked up at him, kind of smiled, says, well,
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  Speaker 2: how about if I tell you about a cop killing?
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  Speaker 2: So Jerry says this guy told him about Walter Baker
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  Speaker 2: Walls had been bragging about killing Don Martin and getting
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  Speaker 2: away with it. So he went to Will Spangenhorst, who
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  Speaker 2: was a detective at the time working the case, and
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  Speaker 2: they both started to work the case together. They did
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  Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff that... that developed Walter as a
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  Speaker 2: very strong suspect, but there just wasn't enough to prosecute
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  Speaker 2: at the time. They took the witnesses up to the
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  Speaker 2: Ohio penitentiary, where Walter Baker Walls was locked up. They
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  Speaker 2: kind of did an unofficial lineup. All four of them said, well,
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  Speaker 2: that looks like the guy, but they weren't certain it was,
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  Speaker 2: because when they saw him, it was 3 o'clock in
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  Speaker 2: the morning, and they were on the way back to Dayton, Ohio.
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  Speaker 2: they didn't really get a good look at them, but
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  Speaker 2: it was strong enough that they still continued with Baker
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  Speaker 2: with walls as a suspect.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what, I have to ask you this,
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  Speaker 1: Jeff share, because after 44 years, you, along with the
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  Speaker 1: assistants at Kurt Bauman, we're finally able to figure this
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  Speaker 1: thing out. Um, interviewing basically the same people that are
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  Speaker 1: being around the time. You got the detectives that were
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  Speaker 1: on the case eyewitnesses. You interviewed folks from the prison,
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  Speaker 1: I guess. And I don't know, it's his prison recollections. Um,
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  Speaker 1: Are you critical of the early investigation? Is this book
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  Speaker 1: intended to be a criticism of a failure to follow through,
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  Speaker 1: or is it just simply a matter of, well, these
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  Speaker 1: kind of things happen, but if you keep working on it,
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  Speaker 1: you may end up getting a positive result or actually
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  Speaker 1: solve the case. I guess I'm just kind of curious
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  Speaker 1: your perception of the investigation around 1961.
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  Speaker 2: They did everything they were supposed to do. It's just
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  Speaker 2: an investigation... You know, it's not like it is on TV, right?
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  Speaker 2: You have to have everything to fall into play. And
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  Speaker 2: I kind of look at an investigation as kind of
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  Speaker 2: the fingers on your hand. If you go in one direction,
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  Speaker 2: that doesn't work. You've got to back out and go
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  Speaker 2: in another direction. If that doesn't work, you go out
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  Speaker 2: and go another direction. Sometimes you go in every direction
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  Speaker 2: and you still don't come up with the answers that
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  Speaker 2: you need to solve the case. And that's all this was.
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  Speaker 2: They looked at every angle that they could. They did
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  Speaker 2: everything they could. How Curt and I got lucky was
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  Speaker 2: that Walt had died a couple months prior to us
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  Speaker 2: getting this case. So family members were more willing to
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  Speaker 2: talk to us than they were back in the day.
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  Speaker 2: So one of the things that we did, I came
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  Speaker 2: up with– we came up with a woman by the
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  Speaker 2: name of Anna Dove. She was the daughter of Walter Waltz.
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  Speaker 2: We went and found her, tracked her down, went to
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  Speaker 2: her house, knocked on her door– I'd say, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I'm Detective Scherr. This is Detective Ballmer with Cincinnati Homicide.
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  Speaker 2: She says, first out of her mouth, is this isn't
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  Speaker 2: about my dad killing a cop, is it? So once
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  Speaker 2: we hear that, we're like, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, that's
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  Speaker 2: why we're here. So she started to tell us the
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  Speaker 2: whole story about what was common knowledge within the Walls family.
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  Speaker 2: From her, we tracked down other family members. We did
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  Speaker 2: all this stuff. And it just worked out for us.
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  Speaker 2: We just, we got lucky because As I said, no
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  Speaker 2: one was afraid of Walter anymore. He was dead and
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  Speaker 2: they were more apt to talk to us. They tried
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  Speaker 2: to talk to him back in 1961 and they just wouldn't,
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  Speaker 2: they wouldn't talk because they were afraid of Walter.
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  Speaker 1: That answers the question. I was going to ask you
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  Speaker 1: about the closely held family secrets, which were referenced in
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  Speaker 1: the notes. And there's the answer to the question you
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  Speaker 1: anticipated where I was going on that. So him dying
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  Speaker 1: resulted in looser lips about the underlying facts, which led
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  Speaker 1: you to be able to conclude that walls was responsible
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  Speaker 1: for this man's murder. Um, it, Explain the value after
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  Speaker 1: 44 years. A lot of people are dead and gone
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  Speaker 1: that were related to this. I guess family members have
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  Speaker 1: moved on to pass. What's the value of investing all
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  Speaker 1: this time and effort in solving a case that's that old?
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  Speaker 1: Is it simply to make a point? Is it the
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  Speaker 1: value of solving the murder of a police officer, which,
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  Speaker 1: of course, for morale of the Cincinnati Police Department, you
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  Speaker 1: should never, ever stop looking. But why did you spend
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  Speaker 1: so much time on this one? Aren't there a whole
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  Speaker 1: lot of other cold cases out there?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but as you said, and your sister confirmed it
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  Speaker 2: as well, we take care of our own, right? I mean,
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  Speaker 2: we're the only ones who do this. So when a
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  Speaker 2: cop is killed, it certainly disturbs the fabric of society.
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  Speaker 2: And when it goes unsolved this long, that disturbance keeps going,
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  Speaker 2: it keeps going, it keeps going. And for Kurt and I,
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  Speaker 2: when Kurt said something– When we pulled this jacket out
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  Speaker 2: from the case file, it's the same jacket that we
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  Speaker 2: wear today. The shirt was the same. The hat was
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  Speaker 2: the same. The tie was the same. And the jacket
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  Speaker 2: that he wore was the same. So it could have
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  Speaker 2: been me. It could have been Kurt. It could have
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  Speaker 2: been any one of us. So I would hope that
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  Speaker 2: if it had happened to me, somebody would have been
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  Speaker 2: as diligent as Kurt and I were to solve our killing.
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  Speaker 2: And that's what it was. It was just taking care
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  Speaker 2: of one of our own.
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  Speaker 1: That's great. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you wrote
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  Speaker 1: the book about it. Is this case, or is your
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  Speaker 1: book and all the details and facts over resolving this
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  Speaker 1: 1961 murder of Donald Martin, is it illustrative of a,
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  Speaker 1: is there such a thing, I might ask more properly,
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  Speaker 1: as a typical cold case that I mean, I know
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  Speaker 1: John Newsom. I'm sure you remember John Newsom when he
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  Speaker 1: was on the police department. He used to work at
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  Speaker 1: Warren County Sheriff's Office. He was responsible for cold cases,
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  Speaker 1: and he's got some fascinating stories about them. But I guess,
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  Speaker 1: is this a typical cold case? I mean, new, fresh
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  Speaker 1: eyes after a long period of time can serve a
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  Speaker 1: lot to help solving a crime just by having a
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  Speaker 1: different perspective. But what's your take on the idea of
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  Speaker 1: a cold case being typical or not?
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  Speaker 2: No case is typical, whether it's a fresh killing or
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  Speaker 2: an old killing. Every case is different. That's what kind
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  Speaker 2: of makes homicide investigations and police work in general. Every
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  Speaker 2: day is different. Every case is different. Every way you
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  Speaker 2: look at a case is different. So there is no
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  Speaker 2: typical cold case. There's no typical hot case. I guess
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  Speaker 2: it's just because we just looked at it from a
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  Speaker 2: different angle. And what I looked at it is I
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  Speaker 2: kind of look at it, I say we were lazy.
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  Speaker 2: And why I say we were lazy is when we
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  Speaker 2: look through the case file, There was five boxes of junk.
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  Speaker 2: Everything had been dumped in from 44 years. People didn't
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  Speaker 2: put stuff back. It just dumped into the case files.
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  Speaker 2: We couldn't make heads or tails of this case. So
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  Speaker 2: we didn't really want to look through it extensively. So
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  Speaker 2: that's why we put the word out for retired cops.
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  Speaker 2: So in essence, I guess our laziness is kind of
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  Speaker 2: what led us to Jerry Schimpf. And God rest his soul,
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  Speaker 2: I dedicated the book to Jerry because without Jerry, we
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  Speaker 2: would never have found Walter Walls in a case file.
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  Speaker 2: There was nothing in there about Walter Baker Walls. One
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  Speaker 2: of the things, too, Will Stagenhorst, he was very protective
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  Speaker 2: of his cases. So his case file in this, he
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  Speaker 2: took home. I talked to his son, Ron, and Ron said, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: his dad had all this stuff at home. When he passed,
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  Speaker 2: they tried to get ahold of the police department to
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  Speaker 2: see if the police department wanted him. They couldn't get
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  Speaker 2: ahold of him, so they threw the case files away. So,
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  Speaker 2: like I said, pure laziness on my part, I think,
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  Speaker 2: is what actually solved the case.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I can't say you're lazy. It's a wonderful outcome.
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  Speaker 1: Finally figured it out after all these years. And, of course,
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  Speaker 1: looking out for your own, as officers do. And God
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  Speaker 1: bless you for it. Shots fired on Redding Road. The
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  Speaker 1: murder of patrolman Donald Martin and the 44-year search for
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  Speaker 1: his killer. Jeffrey Scherer, it has been a pleasure having
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  Speaker 1: you on the morning show. And I want to thank
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  Speaker 1: you again for your service to our community. And I
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  Speaker 1: appreciate you writing the book, which my listeners can easily
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  Speaker 1: get a copy of because Joe Strecker put a link
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  Speaker 1: to it on the blog page of 55KRC.
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  Speaker 2: Com. Thank you for having me, sir.
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  Speaker 1: Anytime, Jeff. Thank you so much for your time today.
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  Speaker 1: It's 840 right now. 841-55-KRC-D. Talk station. Stick around. Phone
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  Speaker 1: lines open.